'I would have loved to have gotten [bin Laden] on our watch,' Karl Rove said. |
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Many expressed relief that the most haunting business left undone when they turned the White House over to the Obama Administration in 2009 is now complete.

“There is a real sense of completion and satisfaction that our country has been able to finish this business,” said Hadley, who was tapped late Sunday night to help draft the former president’s statement.

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Hadley was also the first person Rice reached out to after returning to her hotel room, flipping on the news, and seeing that Obama would soon arrive in the East Room to make an announcement. Bin Laden immediately came to mind, she recalled in an interview.

“I’m very glad that it was before the 10th anniversary in September. That is very gratifying,” said Rice.

“My instant reaction was, ‘Thank God.’ We’ve waited for this day. We wanted to bring him to justice and the U.S. has. It shows what patience will do. This has been a long struggle,” she said.

Although dangers still lurk, Rice said removing bin Laden “sends an important message to other terrorist groups that you may be able to wound us but ultimately the U.S. will find you.”

For Rove, the initial feeling of elation was soon muddled by “a taste of revenge and a lot of sadness. It brought back up 9/11 and everything that had gone on since then,” he said. When he learned that Navy Seals conducted the raid, he was reminded of conversations with many of them who had lost a team member in other operations. And, in the midst of that sadness, there was “enormous pride in the military and intelligence community.”

Rove said he will celebrate by making a donation to the Navy Seals Foundation, with which he already is affiliated.

Rove’s complex reaction offers insight into how searing the bin Laden question had become to those who stood with Bush on New York’s Ground Zero days after the attack, who met repeatedly with victims’ families, and who took heat for their failure to deliver on Bush’s threat to take bin Laden “dead or alive.”

Hughes also was at the heart of that set of Bush advisers.

When she arrived home after her dinner, the telephone was ringing. It was her son, calling from Washington, to tell her to turn the television set on. As was the case with Rice, Hughes immediately sensed that news would involve bin Laden since, as a former White House communications director, she knew the president wouldn’t show up in the East Room late on a Sunday night without big news.

Readers' Comments (114)

I suppose when we Democrats put aside our partisanship and Republicans put aside theirs, we can agree that it was America that got Bin Laden and all deserve credit under the leadership of Presidents Obama and Bush.

“I would have loved to have gotten [bin Laden] on our watch, but that just wasn’t going to be,” Rove said. As early as six months after 9/11 Bush/Cheney decided getting Osama was no longer a priority. Bush complained about reporters who continued to ask about bin Laden. Bush said they couldn't see the bigger picture, that bin Laden was just one man, that he didn't care where bin Laden was. Bush/Cheney and Rove and the contemptible rest of them are now pretending they had tried to do all they could to get bin Laden -- just more patented lies from that disgusting crew that led US into a lie-based war in Iraq.

"Here is the question:" Mr. President, "We know where bin Laden is; can we send a special force to capture him?" But far more elegantly in his speech Obama put his role this way: "At my direction . . ." It was a not so subtle grab for glory; more likely, the plan was laid out before Obama was asked the question. I don't give him much credit for a decision he had no choice in; say no and he was cooked.

But the pragmatic politician must pursue pacifism with an almost imperceptible progression. Obama has been both pacifist yet default pragmatist in this War on Terror, to which he has been no friend. Half of his cuts in his budget are from the military.

He has tried to disguise the cause of terrorist violence by patronizing terrorist supporter nations that in the end, snubbed and lost respect for him. He stopped capturing and interrogating the enemy, choosing to kill with Predator - including collaterally, grandchildren.

The President lost my support when he was asked to provide urgent reinforcements in 2009. It took half a year; even then, he sent substantially less than what he was asked for. He tried to change the name to Overseas Contingency Whatever, and attempted to bring terrorists into this country to be tried with citizen rights.

Not to worry. Fox News spent most of the day running old videos of Bush at Ground Zero and interviewing Andy Card and Karl Rove, who kept repeating that without George Bush this day would never have happened. Every once in a while they mentioned as an aside that Obama helped get Bin Laden too !

I suppose when we Democrats put aside our partisanship and Republicans put aside theirs, we can agree that it was America that got Bin Laden and all deserve credit under the leadership of Presidents Obama and Bush.

Just to set the record straight, Bush policy did produce Gitmo, and held terrorists there using interrogation techniques. After 9/11 a Gitmo detainee i.d'd one courier of Bin Laden's using code names only..... In 2007 the CIA learned the real name of the courier they suspected was a key in finding Bin Laden. It took 4 years after that to glean the information and find the exact trail to where OBL was hiding.

Looks like Bush is vindicated and his policy was sound.

Also for the record Obama wanted to close Gitmo, then retracted and this weekend took the chance and gave an order to get OBL. It was gutsy and made America feel that justice has been done for the victims. It can't bring them back but it can help to heal. Partisan hacks should see that it took several POTUS's policies and orders to get OBL, but the heroes are all of the CIA/Navy/military who did it.

Smart phones work wonders for information gathering these days to get the facts on major world events so that political spin without both sides of the story doesn't happen. Guardian.co.uk was reporting on the intel gathered under Bush from a detainee on the courier, then solid tracking of the courier led to the event this week end....

AP-About a dozen people gathered near Bush's high-security home until a thunderstorm started about midnight Sunday. On Monday morning, a sign on the gate read in small letters, "President Obama forgot to say ..." then continued in letters big enough to be read from the road, "Thank you President Bush."